Danny Higginbotham’s international call-up is a very modern affair - and not just because he is poised to represent Europe’s youngest footballing nation. The 34-year-old former Manchester United defender, now part-time with non-league Chester, received his invite to play for Gibraltar, now Uefa’s 54th and smallest member, via Twitter.

It is almost 30 years since Higginbotham last set foot on the Rock. It was a family holiday when he was “six or seven”, a return to the British overseas territory where his father, John, had been stationed as a soldier and met his Spanish mother, Antonio. Danny’s brother, Paul, was born in Gibraltar but money was tight and the family managed just the one holiday there. “We were a working-class family and couldn’t afford the flights,” he recalls.

The Gibraltar Football Association, established in 1895 and one of the 10 oldest in the world, have not previously been able to pay for flights, either. It is one reason why it took until so long for the coach, Higginbotham’s uncle Allen Bula, to call him up, although not before first sounding him out on Twitter. Finally, last Tuesday, his qualification through his grandmother was ratified.

“It is certainly not a PR-stunt,” Higginbotham says. “People have said certain things such as: ‘Why haven’t you been called up before?’ But they have not been eligible to try and qualify for these tournaments and financially it did not make sense to fly me over.”

Higginbotham will finally take a flight today - but even then he will not be heading for Gibraltar Airport, which may be a relief given it was once classed as the most dangerous runway in Europe, as it bisects the nation’s busiest road, Winston Churchill Avenue. Instead, he will fly to the Algarve in Portugal, Gibraltar’s temporary sporting home, meet up with the rest of the squad for the first time and make his debut in a friendly against Slovakia, which represents the start of the peninsula’s official life as a competitive football nation heading towards the qualification campaign for Euro 2016.

The draw is made in February and Higginbotham - who will be joined in the squad by two other English-based players, the 28-year-old Barnsley defender Scott Wiseman and Adam Priestley, a Gibraltar-born striker with non-league Farsley Athletic - is under no illusions as to the scale of the task that awaits.

Gibraltar, measuring just 2.6 square miles and with a population of 28,000, are more used to facing the likes of Tibet and the Shetland Islands. But, in Higginbotham, they have a man whose enthusiasm for the game has been rekindled after he had grown disillusioned at Sheffield United.

“I wasn’t enjoying the day-to-day mundane side of things,” he explains. “I wasn’t enjoying the training, the travelling. Football has been good to me and it was nothing to do with money because I had another year left there and I could have just stayed there and picked up my money.

“Don’t get me wrong, financially I have done well out of football but I did not want to finish my career on a sour note. I always believe that the last thing you do is how you remember it – and I did not want to remember the last year of my career without playing and I also wanted there to be a bit of a challenge.”

So Higginbotham tore up that final year and joined Chester, combining playing with a burgeoning media career. “I had had enough of full-time football,” he says. “I joined Chester and the first five games we lost and people were saying: ‘Do you really want to do that?’ And, of course, I did because it made a difference. If the team stays up in the Conference then that’s a better achievement.”

It is easy to see why, therefore, he has decided to also help Gibraltar. “I’ve been very fortunate enough to play at the highest-level, so I have seen it from that side as well,” says Higginbotham, who made more than 300 Premier League appearances mainly with Southampton, Sunderland and Stoke City. “I’m not going to play for Gibraltar thinking we are going to qualify, but it’s a real opportunity for smaller nations.

“I’m not going to sit here and claim I had my career because I was blessed with all the ability and all the tricks in the world. That was not the reason why I’ve had a successful career. The reasons why is because I’ve given 100 per cent in everything I’ve done. For me, to have played for as long as I did in the Premier League, I had to give 100 per cent.”

Drawing England - which is perfectly feasible, even if Uefa will keep Gibraltar and Spain apart in an effort to avoid a potential political powder-keg - would be “bizarre” for Higginbotham, whose previous international involvement was as a stand-by for the England under-21 squad.

“It would be an experience to play against England, which is my nation, no doubt about it, but I was not good enough to be involved with England,” Higginbotham says. “Whatever happens Gibraltar will be drawn against some huge teams and they want to put themselves on the map.

“I’ve played in the Premier League and I’ve had some hidings before but what you have to do is come off that pitch and hold your hands up and say ‘you know what? They were better than us’. And we will get a hiding.”

At the same time he defends Gibraltar’s right to take part. “The way I look at it is that in this country there’s the FA Cup and it’s the biggest club tournament in the world so is anyone going to say: ‘The FA Cup should only involve these teams because the others aren’t in the league and are not going to do well.’

“And, with the FA Cup, you see upsets and you also see teams who would never, ever get the opportunity to play against the Championship or Premier League clubs.

“When you get to 34, almost 35, you have seen most things, but I would have been a fool to turn this down. It’s something I can achieve in my life.”